


Voices in the Dark

by twistedchick



Series: Gamblers' Choice [5]
Category: La Femme Nikita
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:49:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/pseuds/twistedchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Birkoff is kidnapped, it may take all their ingenuity to get him back alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voices in the Dark

The nightmare started with a phone call, waking Nikita from a sound sleep.

"Josephine." The tone of Michael's voice shocked her awake. "Come in immediately."

"What's wrong?" she asked, throwing her clothes on.

"Birkoff's gone. Walter was shot."

***

This time the briefing didn't have fancy computer graphics on the viewscreen, telling them what had occurred. Operations paced back and forth, in the little briefing room. Nikita looked around the room, noticing how the lines in everyone's faces looked deeper, and the expressions harsher, than usual. Different people sat in the room as well: Mowen, whom Nikita had met on two missions, and Rick, a sharpshooter she'd seen on one mission. Two computer ops that Birkoff had been training, Gail and Connie, sat together; Gail looked as if she were in shock.

"Walter is in surgery as we speak," Operations said. "He and Birkoff were going to a movie at the Kino, on South Florence. As they got out of the car, an unmarked van pulled up beside them. Two men grabbed Birkoff and pulled him in; another two reached for Walter. Walter shot both of the men coming after him but only wounded one of the ones holding Birkoff. He himself was shot in the shoulder and in the leg. He crawled back inside the car and activated the emergency locator, and we brought him in within minutes."

Nikita felt numb. "Does Birkoff have the same psychological training as the rest of us?" she asked. She knew Birkoff had only learned to shoot recently; his greatest skills were for computer programming and strategy.

Madeleine nodded. "His skills are excellent. Unfortunately, since we don't know who has him we also don't know why they want him, or what they are likely to do with him."

"Did Walter see anything that would help?" Michael asked.

"Along with the locator, he activated the scanner. Since Birkoff's physiological data is known to our computers, it can scan for his presence." Operations' fist clenched on the back of a chair. "We lost track of him after ten minutes. He could be headed anywhere in the world."

Operations brought his gaze up to include everyone in the room, individually and together. "Here's our situation, people. We cannot risk exposure. Birkoff knows everything about our operation. If he cannot be brought back alive, he must not remain be allowed to stay alive as a captive. Period. You all know this."

His eyes were directly on Nikita now. "He is our top priority." His eyes swept past Madeleine to Michael, to Mowen and Rick, to Gail and Connie. "Get to work."

***

Nikita shook off the daze she felt as she moved out of the room. She couldn't afford to feel numb; Birkoff's life was at stake. She followed the computer ops back to their stations, sat down at Birkoff's own workstation and set the computer to skim through his last few days' work. She knew she was no wizard like Birkoff, but maybe she could find a pattern to show a place to start.

No pattern emerged. Birkoff's last three days of work appeared no different from any other time. He had been piecing together and plotting data from innumerable sources, seeking connections among dissident groups. He had traced the changes in group behavior resulting from interference by Section One, and the results of that change, the regrouping and revision of goals.

"Nikita," Michael said behind her. "Come with me. We're going out on the street to check the area."

"That's been done, hasn't it?" She didn't want to take her eyes off the screen.

"Walter suggested it." She looked up. "He's in recovery. He said he thought something dropped out of the van as they left, but he passed out and couldn't tell that to the rescue team."

"I'm with you." Nikita turned away from the computer with regret. A name on the screen caught her eye, and she said, "Wait a minute. This group, Orbis. Why does it sound familiar?"

"We hit their headquarters last year." Michael was already leaving.

Nikita shook her head. "No, that's not it." She got up to follow Michael, still trying to piece together why that one word had jumped at her out of the hundred screens of material. "Gail, would you find out whatever you can about Orbis?" she said to one of the ops.

Gail nodded. "It'll be here when you get back." Screens flashed in front of her as she scanned the monitors for any sign of Birkoff's bioscan. Her eyes were red; she'd been dating Birkoff off and on for a few months.

***

It was a dingy neighborhood, between the old factories and the artist's colony, where poverty was still more a chosen lifestyle than a grinding monster to escape from. Here, there was still hope. As they drove by, Nikita noticed the theater's marquee, "Rocky Horror Picture Show, Midnight," below the list of all-day cheap double-features.

Walter had parked the car a couple of blocks away, next to a public lot and a factory. Nikita and Michael parked their motorbikes nearby and scanned the area; nothing suspicious. Nobody lurking in odd corners or dressed as if they didn't belong -- though sorting out what "belonged" in a street of artists' flats could be challenging.

Michael looked along the street and the curb where the car had been parked. Nothing. Nikita walked along and, to give her a reason to look lower, dropped her glasses. When she ducked to pick them up she saw something under the middle of a car parked across the street. It lay in the shadow under the frame, behind a tire. She walked over idly, dropped her keys this time, and retrieved the item as she got the keys.

It was a button or badge, with an odd logo on it and the letters "O.P.M."

***

"O.P.M. emerged in the 1960s as a religious cult," Gail said. "It started as a sectarian religious group, Orbis Precari, and later affiliated with a number of political dissident factions and became Orbis Precari Malum. It acquires new members by sheltering runaways."

The words awoke in Nikita a memory: posters aimed at street kids, advertising "Orbis -- The Circle That Cares." It was supposed to give food and shelter, but not force runaways to go home. She'd never wanted to go there, she wasn't that desperate, but she knew some who had. Regardless of Orbis' claims to allowing their newcomers freedom, she'd never seen any of them again.

A hologram appeared over the briefing table, showing lines of connection between groups. "It supplies cannon fodder to these groups to be trained. As you've noticed, all the groups are ones Section has gone up against, including Orbis Magnus and Red Cell," Gail said. "It's likely that most Section operatives would be known by sight to the agents of these groups, but not to O.P.M." The hologram blinked off.

"Birkoff doesn't go outside much. Nobody sees him on missions," Michael said. "Why would they want him, as opposed to Walter or any of us? What's the connection?"

The question hung in the air until Madeleine spoke. "Mr. Birkoff came to us from O.P.M. Evidently they wanted him back. How they found out he was with us is another question."

Nikita frowned. She'd seen Birkoff's file a while ago. Madeleine had shown it to her when she was trying to help Birkoff get past his fear of the outside world. Nowhere could she remember Orbis Precari Malum in his file, or OPM, or anything similar. She'd thought he'd been brought in after killing someone in his family, though he'd told her once he lied about that. Had he lied in order to become part of Section One? Why?

"We've got a target now," Operations said. "How long?"

"Within an hour we should have a location," Gail told him.

"Good. The sooner the better. The team will be Michael, Nikita, Mowen, Rick, Gail." Operations rose and left the room.

"How is Walter?" Nikita asked Madeleine, who had paused to check a monitor.

"He's in recovery. You can stop by to see him for a few minutes."

Nikita took her aside. "Madeleine, when you showed me Birkoff's file a few months ago, I don't remember seeing anything about O.P.M. in it. Was there a reason?"

Madeleine considered for a moment, then brought Nikita back into the briefing room. They went to the computer in the corner, where she pulled up Birkoff's file. Nikita read it twice.

"He hacked into the Federal Reserve Banking system? To get away from O.P.M.?" She looked at Madeleine, amazed.

"We wanted him because his work was brilliant, as good as what was being done by our own trained people. It helped, of course, that he killed one of the OPM guards just before he was arrested."

Nikita started to say something about Birkoff never killing anyone before he came to Section, but stopped. Madeleine gave her the "what aren't you telling me" look.

"Birkoff told me once that he'd lied to get in here, and he'd never killed anyone."

"It's true that he never shot anyone until recently. But don't believe everything Birkoff says about himself," Madeleine cautioned. "He is as dangerous as the rest of us."

***

Walter was conscious, in a little pain, and deeply troubled. He made an effort to smile when Nikita walked up to the bed to kiss him and hold his hand, but the first thing he said was, "Any news?"

Nikita told him what she knew.

"Damn. I should've gotten the guy. I should've just rented the tape for the stupid movie, but Birkoff wanted to see it on the big screen."

"For what it's worth, I don't think 'Rocky Horror' is much fun if you're not in a theater," she told him. "You did what you could."

He turned his head restlessly on the pillow. "Nikita, that kid went through living hell at O.P.M. When he came here he weighted ninety pounds and he shook if anyone looked at him sideways. He could do amazing things with computers, he always could. But it's taken him 'til now to learn to be human."

"I'm on the team. I'll take care of him," Nikita whispered to him.

"You do that, sugar. You make sure they don't keep him. If you have to do it, shoot him. He'd thank you." Walter's eyes, tired and pained, met hers. "Believe me, being there is the last thing he'd ever want."

"I'll get him out, Walter. I promise you, I'll bring him back."

"Be careful." Walter shivered. "I don't want to lose you too."

***

They went out on mission that night, their target a labyrinth of warehouses near the old stockyards. Gail had located it as the O.P.M. headquarters, and surveillance had shown few guards with weapons, thought there were many people there. Michael and Nikita took the first two buildings, Mowen and Rick the next two.

Nikita wished she were dreaming, so she could wake up and not have it be real. She and Michael skimmed like shadows through the halls, past rooms of sleeping or drugged children in shapeless clothes who lay on mattresses on the floor. The sleepers never noticed Nikita going through their rooms, checking their faces, looking for Birkoff and also for the kids she'd known on the streets who'd gone to Orbis. They kept moving, past the rows of sewing machines and the workshops and the classrooms, and a room that glittered with gilded walls and a throne on a dais at one end.

Mowen told them on the comlink that he'd found offices and a computer, and Michael agreed he should black box it now and copy its contents.

"How much collateral damage are we allowed?" Nikita asked Michael.

"Not much, this trip, but whatever we can bring in besides Birkoff will be a bonus."

She nodded, trying to think of a way to free the children. Nothing came to mind that would not hinder their mission.

Gail, tracking them from the van, said, "You're still two floors up from the basement, and there are tunnels under all these buildings. I'm seeing guards moving around there." She gave them the positions.

"We're on it," Nikita told her. She and Michael searched down a floor, then another one, and then into a long tunnel between buildings. Michael shot one guard with a silenced gun. Another moved away from them, out of sight, as they hid by a wall. He was too far away to make a good target.

They started down the hall again, Nikita listening for the guard's footsteps. A small scratching noise caught her attention, and she stopped in mid-tunnel. "Michael. Over here."

It was a small door, low and square, that looked as if it led to a service alley for heating pipes -- but it was padlocked and had a small air vent. Michael broke the lock and pulled the door open. "Too small. I won't make it in," he said.

"I'll go." She crawled through the doorway and into a narrow room with damp stone walls. "Birkoff?" she whispered. "It's Nikita. I've come to get you out."

A hand touched her leg, and she reached downward, shining her flashlight in that direction. The shape on the floor flinched away from the light. She stooped, and reached out cautiously. "Birkoff?"

Her hand touched his face, and she felt blood on it and in his short hair. He nodded.

"We're getting you out. Can you walk?"

He shook his head. He moved her hand down to his legs, and she turned the light in that direction. He was shackled to the wall. What she could see of his skin was black and blue with bruises. His feet were bloody.

She had brought Walter's best lockpicks with her. As she worked, Birkoff moved closer to her, and a hoarse voice breathed roughly near her ear. "Punishment cell."

"What could you possibly have done to deserve this?" She attacked the lock fiercely, and broke it open. "I escaped. I survived." His voice broke. "Example to others."

He tried to stand, and couldn't do it.

"Someone's coming," Michael said urgently.

"He can't walk."

"Give him to me." Michael glanced aside down the dark tunnel. "Mowen, Rick, we've found him. Come in for backup."

Nikita knelt on the cold stone and took Birkoff in her arms. He clung to her weakly with one arm. "You have to live. Walter needs you. I need you. Now, let's get out of here." She felt him nod against her shoulder. Carefully she handed him out the small door to Michael, then crawled out herself and accepted Michael's spare gun.

She took out two guards at the end of the tunnel, three more at the lowest level of the building. Mowen and Rick met them on the first floor and took care of the other guards. They pulled away in the van quickly.

All the way back, Birkoff lay unconscious in Nikita's arms and across Mowen's lap, with Nikita's coat wrapped around him. The loose robe he wore was dark with blood. Michael and Rick worked with a first-aid kit to bandage his feet, but could do little. Birkoff's glasses were gone, and he had cuts around his eyes that worried Nikita. Michael's eyes looked suspiciously damp as he put away the first-aid kit under the seat. They carried him straight to sickbay, and handed him over to the best team of doctors Section possessed.

***

Three broken fingers. One broken wrist. Two broken ribs. Bruised larynx. Innumerable cuts and lacerations, many of them caused by a whip. Severe contusions, damage to feet, legs, back and head.

As soon as he was able to talk, Birkoff was debriefed by Operations and Madeleine. He told them he hadn't said anything of Section, but had led O.P.M. to believe that he'd run away to live with his grandfather, Walter. As far as he knew, it had been a random incident -- O.P.M. regularly scoured the cities where it had bases in order to find escapees. Madeleine was skeptical, but she bided her time.

It was a week before Birkoff was well enough for Nikita to visit him. Just the fact of his being back in Section alive had made Walter anxious to recover, so he could see how Birkoff was.

"He'll talk to me about things he might not say to you," Walter told her. "I was here before, I know what went on." "They want me to work on his psych eval," Nikita said. "Madeleine said she talked to Ops about it. If they do, I might not be allowed to see him beforehand."

"It's okay. I'll tell him you wanted to come. And another thing," Walter told her, struggling to sit up on the hospital bed. "I'm going along when you go back to wipe out the bastards who did this."

"I don't know if we're going, or when. Nobody's said a thing."

Walter grunted. "Trust me, they're thinking about it."

Nikita's bright eyes turned dark. "Oh, yes. Nothing personal, of course."

"Of course." Walter said. "Like hell."

***

Birkoff looked asleep when Nikita came into the room, but he turned his face toward her as soon as he heard her footsteps. She gasped involuntarily, and hoped at once that he couldn't hear her. One eye was bandaged, and his bruises blazed in full color.

"It's me, Nikita," she said, and caught his free hand in both of hers as soon as she could reach him. He held on tight despite the splints on two fingers. "Are you going to be all right?"

"They say so," Birkoff said. His voice was much closer to normal. "The doctors say I'll have some interesting scars to impress my dates with."

"I'll bet." She hesitated on her next question, and he caught that.

"They had to take a splinter out of my eye, but I can still see. It has to heal." He squeezed her hand. "I can still work."

"Good. Is there anything I can do?"

He nodded. "You're going in, right? Flash and burn?"

"Yes. Soon."

"Be careful." Birkoff's body was shaking with the effort to remember and stay calm. "Some places the floors are mined; look for a painted red decoration near the door. Hit the center of that and it turns the explosives on."

"How did we miss that before?" she said, startled.

"They were inactive; they wouldn't show on our system. I've told Gail how to fix that."

Nikita wished she could do more than hold his hand. "How'd you ever get away before?"

For the first time, she saw the cocky Birkoff smile. "I hacked into the Federal Reserve system computer and put my name on some of their money, so they'd have to come for me."

Even though she'd seen it in his file, she was impressed. "That must have taken a while."

Birkoff shrugged, catching himself when it hurt. "I'd gotten on for a little while before. I worked it all out in my head while they had me doing other things." He paused. "You're going to ask about family, right? I ran away from them when I was twelve. O.P.M. looked better."

Nikita shuddered. "And Section?"

"Better than that. This is the only place anyone's ever respected me."

***

"Getting him back was too easy," Operations muttered. "Something's wrong."

"It wasn't an effective trap," Madeleine pointed out. "Unless the trap's still open."

"Unless they've made him a Trojan horse." Operations' eyes met Madeleine's with a speculative glance. "Would they have had time to turn him?"

"I don't think so." Madeleine considered the situation. "They had him for less than 48 hours. Birkoff does not endure physical abuse well, but it generally has the opposite effect to what is desired -- it makes him more determined not to crack. When he's recovered somewhat, we'll put him through his paces."

"How is Nikita coming on her hypnosis training?"

"Very well. It may be useful for her to be there when he's undergoing hypnosis. Has anything helpful come from the black box?" "They're working on it now." Ops frowned. "Why didn't we find out about this place when we hit Orbis last year?" "We didn't deal with this branch of Orbis, only the one in Stockholm. It's possible they've been there for some time," Madeleine pointed out. "Birkoff's recovering quickly. We'll do his debriefing."

***

Birkoff couldn't sit in a chair comfortably for long, so he lay on his side on a padded couch. The room lights were darkened, except for one spot of light on the crystal that Nikita held in front of his eyes.

"Focus on the crystal, Birkoff," she said in a soft voice. "Let everything else go and focus on the crystal. Hear only my voice, nothing else. You and I are the only people in the room. Let yourself relax."

Within a few minutes he was under hypnosis. Madeleine, pacing in the darkness behind Nikita, said, "Let's see what you can do. Take him back to the day before the kidnapping."

"Birkoff, go back in your mind to Tuesday, the 23rd. Tell me what happened that day."

"I ran tests on the backup systems, I put together intel for Ops on Kerkyria, I wrote the program for the new scanner..." His voice trailed off as he went through his day. "Walter and I talked about going to see 'Rocky Horror Picture Show.'"

"Was anyone else around when you were talking to Walter?" Nikita asked. "You're back there. Look around. Who else is there?"

"I'm in Walter's workroom. He's there, I'm there, oh, and Murphy is there, returning equipment. He just came in as I finished talking."

Nikita glanced up at Madeleine. "Murphy?"

"Keep going," Madeleine said. A line had appeared between her eyebrows.

"Birkoff, let's take you up a day. Tell me what happened when you went out with Walter."

"We drove to the Kino, and he pointed out places I might like to go sometime. I haven't been in that part of town before, and it looks interesting. He parks the car. We're talking about the movie -- he hasn't seen it either -- and I get out of the car, and when I turn around the van pulls up." His voice went thin and higher, as if he'd lost years. "It's O.P.M. They've come to get me, and Walter can't stop them. They grab me and pull me into the van. Walter's shooting at them, and hits them, but they've hit him too and he goes down and they pull their wounded into the van and it takes me away."

Sweat was breaking out on his forehead. Nikita knew she wasn't allowed to touch him -- the hypnotist does not interfere with the person under trance -- so she made her voice as gentle as possible.

"It's all right, Birkoff. Move back away from it a little -- nobody can hurt you. You're just watching what happened. Tell me what you see. Do you know the people in the van?"

"I know one Angelus, but not the other four. They throw me down on the floor. I'm trying to get away, I'm trying everything Walter and Michael and you taught me, and none of it works. They're too big."

"What's an Angelus, Birkoff? Is it a guard?"

"Angeli are -- special. They're stronger. They protect Orbis." His face contorted as he remembered. "Some of them hit me, and I curl up to protect myself, but the big Angelus, Ruman, stops them and tells them they will be rewarded by the Most Holy for bringing me in. They blindfold me and tie my hands and feet, and at the end of the drive, they take me into the court of the Most Holy, Most High."

Nikita recognized the room he described as the one with the gilded throne in it.

"They carried me in and threw me down in front of the throne, and I heard her speaking." He shuddered. "She was telling the Chosen Children about how they found me, and brought me in, and made me a Chosen One, and how I'd betrayed them and left them. Now they'd brought me back into the Children, and I'd never leave again."

"How do you feel, Birkoff?"

"Terrified. She's got that sound in her voice that Madeleine gets when she's just called Housekeeping to deal with someone."

Nikita caught Madeleine's eye. Was the older woman smiling, one of those quiet smiles, or was it a trick of the light?

"Back up again. You're just watching this, Birkoff." Nikita waited until he was calmer to continue. "Tell me what happened next."

"The Most High said I had to be punished for leaving them, for bringing them to shame by my actions. She told Kezef to correct me, in front of everyone." Birkoff's voice shook, but he held still. "They pulled my clothes off. They said it wasn't right for me to be corrected in the clothes of the faithless. Then they started."

"Were you still blindfolded?" Nikita asked.

"Yes. They said I wasn't worthy to look upon the Most High. They took away my glasses and crushed them; I heard the glass break. Two of them held me down, and Kezef beat me with the whip, and a stick, and a heavy leather strap."

Madeleine stopped behind Birkoff's couch. "Ask him what he said to them."

"Birkoff, what did you say when they hurt you?"

"It hurt so much. I cried. I didn't say anything. Then they started to whip my feet. The Most High asked me where I'd been for so long. I didn't answer. They kept hitting me, they broke my fingers. Finally I said I was staying with my grandfather. I told them Walter was my grandfather. She said I was lying, and told them to keep going. I passed out. When I came to, they had picked me up by the arms -- my wrist hurt -- and I heard her say that they would send me aside by myself to think on my sins until it pleased her to see me again. They put me in the punishment room and locked me to the wall and went away." He stopped a moment. "I thought I could hear footsteps outside, but it was only the Angelus on guard.

Then she came."

Madeleine paced back and forth behind Nikita.

"The Most High?" Nikita asked. Birkoff nodded. "What happened then?"

"She said they'd been looking for me ever since I left, because it was wrong for a Chosen One to live among the unfaithful.

She said they would reward with great privilege the one who told them how to find me."

Madeleine, pacing behind Birkoff's couch, frowned.

"She said I was evil, but I could be redeemed in my own blood and become Chosen again."

"How would you do that, Birkoff?"

His voice came slowly. "K-k-"

"Go down a little deeper in the trance, to where you can remember it. You're not there now, you're just remembering. Now, tell me, what did she tell you."

"She told me to kill my grandfather."

"Walter?"

He nodded. "And anyone else I had been with since I left them."

Madeleine stopped pacing. "Classic Trojan Horse. Bring him out of it, Nikita, but put in a psychic block to keep him from acting on what this Most High told him." Her calmness veiled a certainty.

Nikita obeyed. "Birkoff, listen to me. I'm going to bring you back out in a few minutes. When you come out, you will remember everything you have said and everything you experienced, but it will not hurt you and you will not act upon anything you were told by the Most High, the Angelus or anyone else outside Section One. Do you understand?" Birkoff nodded slowly. "I'm bringing you out now, three, two, one. How do you feel?"

Birkoff's eyes opened. He looked at her, then at Madeleine. "I'm tired. How did I do?"

"You did fine, Birkoff. We'll send you back to the infirmary now." Madeleine's voice was compassionate, and Nikita relaxed. "Do you remember what the Most High told you?"

He nodded slowly. "I'm not going to kill Walter, or any of you. Takes too much effort."

Madeleine smiled. "Good. Nikita, get Birkoff settled. I have business with Mr. Murphy." She turned and went out.

Nikita helped Birkoff walk slowly back to his infirmary room on bandaged, padded feet. "Do you think Murphy set this up?"

Birkoff shook his head wearily. "There are no coincidences in Section."

***

"Nothing useful from the Orbis computer? I don't believe it." Operations was pacing, frustration written in his every movement.

"The computers must have been wiped," Michael said. "They may be ready to go on the move again."

"Then we'll go in tonight."

Madeleine came into Operations' office. She waited for Michael to leave before speaking. "We've had a traitor in our ranks."

Operations wheeled around sharply to face her. "Who?"

"Murphy. He admitted he told Orbis about Birkoff, but said he wasn't placed here by Orbis."

"Oh?"

"He said he was contacted by Orbis several months ago -- as a former Orbis member. Betraying Birkoff was their price for readmitting him."

"Has he been cancelled?"

Madeleine nodded. "Not before telling us a great deal more about Orbis than we knew. There were two O.P.M. moles among our people besides him; he named them and they are being held now for questioning."

"How could this happen?" Operations was appalled. "Is there a fault in our screening process? Why wouldn't these people tell us when they are being solicited?"

"Murphy said the O.P.M. training is more stringent than ours, their psychological makeover goes deeper. He said the reason we were able to convert Birkoff is that they never really had him -- he engineered his escape in a way that showed he was not O.P.M. material."

"Very interesting. I'll want to question these two moles along with you."

Madeleine's eyebrows rose. "If you wish."

***

"Some of you may remember Orbis Magnus, whom we dealt with a year ago," Operations said. The team sat in the briefing room, listening. "The name means Great Circle, for those of you who didn't study Latin. We've found that their Great Circle is larger than we expected -- it includes terrorists in Sri Lanka, mercenaries in central Africa, and several other groups we've been trying to get a lock on for a while."

"Since Orbis Magnus is fed by O.P.M, you're going back to the O.P.M. unit where Birkoff was, to kidnap their leaders and obtain intel. This is a search and destroy mission. Take it with you or make it unusable."

The holoscreen came up. Operations identified a tall man as the head of the Angeli, Ruman, and the woman in green as Shula, who called herself the Most High. "These are your targets."

"These floors are mined," Gail said, pointing them out on a new hologram. "This red design indicates that. I've found a way to scan for the presence of the explosives they use, but it's not perfect. You'll have to be careful."

Nikita heard herself speak up. "What about the children who are there?"

Operations turned to look at her. "They're not our concern, Nikita. We're not running an orphanage here."

She knew he'd say that. He always did. He also lectured her about getting involved -- or else had Madeleine lecture her about it. But she'd seen him look at her after missions where she went against orders to save innocents, including his own son -- and once saving Madeleine herself -- and she knew his feelings were mixed regardless of what he said.

Operations moved his attention to Gail. "We're going in tonight. Make sure everyone has what they need." She nodded.

"Who's doing Walter's job?" Rick asked.

"I am," came from the doorway. Walter stood there on crutches, his face defiant. "I'll stay in the van, but you're not going without me."

Operations nodded sharply. "Fine. Walter will run intel and comm, in Birkoff's place. That's all."

***

Nikita went back to see Birkoff before the mission, just in case he'd remembered anything else. He was sitting up reading, but closed the book when she came in. The look on his face worried her.

"What is it?"

He fidgeted. "It's driving me crazy not to have a computer, but they can't give me access until Madeleine's sure I won't plant bombs."

"Viruses. Yeah." She nodded. "Are you worried? Nobody's blaming you for what happened. You're fine."

"So far." Birkoff shivered. "What if there's something in my mind that I don't know about that will get me in trouble?"

"Madeleine will take care of it. I'll help. Walter will help. We'll get you back to being you, Birkoff."

His face looked unearthly young without his glasses. "Please, Nikita. I can't deal with this much longer."

***

Flash and burn. Go in under cover of night, take what can be salvaged, whatever is useful, and destroy everything else. Nikita had no problem at all with the first part of those orders, and a vast problem with the second part. What about the children?

Section was sending a larger force this time, opening the place up wide, searching it for weapons, ammunition, and intel, and taking alive as many of the O.P.M. leaders as possible. Nikita didn't even know all the operatives on the mission, though she'd seen most of them once or twice. As in the past, she and Michael were paired with Mowen and Rick as support, to go in and take down Shula and get rid of Ruman, Kezef and as many of the Angeli as possible.

Nikita felt comfortable working with the team, no problem. She felt less worried about Walter working comm in the van than she would have if he were back at Section HQ fussing about them. Lame or not, he was still a treasury of deadly experience that could help them in ways they might need.

They hit ground inside the walls after midnight, took out the guards patrolling the property with little trouble, and headed into the compound. Birkoff had pointed out to Madeleine which places the Most High might be, and where the Angeli were, and Nikita had mapped out for herself a few more ways of getting into them just in case. The place was riddled with tunnels and passageways, none of them in a straight line for long.

***

Madeleine herself had come to get Birkoff. "Get dressed. We need you for the mission."

Birkoff stared. "You're letting me out?"

"Read-only, Ops' office with me. We need your input." She pushed a wheelchair up to him. "There's no time for you to walk."

He pulled on soft sweats over his bandages, and Madeleine helped him into the wheelchair and sped off toward Operations' high office.

"What's happening?" Birkoff asked.

"Does something have to be wrong? I want you there."

He felt profoundly nervous.

***

Walter sat in the van, monitoring the operatives' progress through the cellars and rooms. He'd rigged a copy of the hologram Gail had put together, the one that showed every floor of every building at the O.P.M. site, and had tagged each operative with a different color of light so that he could see where they were in the layers of green on the hologram.

All was going well so far, but Walter was taking no chances. He'd brought some of his own weapons with him, and kept them at his side. The last thing anyone needed was for him to be unable to defend himself, and to allow outsiders to breach Section's computers.

Mowen and Rick had found more computers and were downloading their contents into black boxes. Most of the other operatives were taking out guards, searching for files and intel, copying and destroying what they found. Michael and Nikita were tracking Shula, who seemed to be moving through the rooms on a course of her own. Birkoff had said that she used to pace the halls at night.

Nikita walked into the room where she'd seen the drugged children on her last mission. They were still there, but they lay too still, and a strange scent caught her attention, slightly sweet and deadly.

"Michael! Go on air mask -- the place has been gassed."

She slipped her breathing mask on and checked for a pulse on the next two children. Still there, but faint. It took less than a minute for her to decide what to do. Nikita ducked into the small office behind the throne room and fastened a small device to the phone. It would allow her to dial in through that phone from a distance, and would then explode after a minute, leaving no real trace of itself.

She heard shots ahead and moved back into the corridor toward the throne room.

***

The floor of the throne room went red on the hologram. "Nikita! The floor's live! Don't go in," Walter told her urgently.

"Too late, Walter."

***

Ruman stood in the center of the room, seven and a half feet tall, holding Michael like a rag doll at an angle that made it impossible for him to get a good hold on his captor. Shula held a pistol at Michael's head.

Nikita was three steps into the room when she heard Walter's voice and knew she might die with her next step.

"Drop it or he dies," Shula ordered.

In response, Nikita's finger tightened on the trigger. Her first bullet hit Shula in the shoulder, knocking her away from Michael; her second smashed into the hand that held the gun. She turned, and her finger tightened further, pushing her weapon into automatic mode. Bullets splattered against Ruman. They pummeled him, but didn't penetrate his body armor. Ruman swung Michael around in front of himself to block Nikita's bullets.

***

Birkoff watched the broadcast from Nikita's headset. "Tell her to stay off the curly patterns on the floor -- those are where the mines are."

"Are you sure?" Ops asked.

"They match the wall marking. Usually there's a rug down over them, but not on holy days." Birkoff saw the question on Ops' face, and rattled off a phrase in a language Ops didn't know. "The Day of Decision, Day of Liberation. Annual holy day." Ops nodded and reached for the comm.

"Walter -- tell them the patterns mark the mines."

"Birkoff, why didn't you remember this before?" Madeleine asked.

Birkoff shook his head. "I didn't see it while I was there -- they had me blindfolded. They could've changed things -- when I was there the rituals were different every year." Nikita's voice came over the comlink, through a storm of gunfire. "Birkoff, are all the patterns mined or just some of them?"

"I don't know. The big ones are. They change the pattern a lot."

***

Nikita dropped to the floor, on a narrow path between the smaller painted rosettes, and fired up at Ruman. Michael had managed to get loose and roll away, crossing several patterned sections. Nikita's heart was in her throat, but Michael was still in one piece. He snatched up the pistol that Shula had dropped, and shot Ruman in the head. The man dropped like a stone, directly onto the largest painted pattern in the center of the floor.

The floor below him exploded, sending the body up to the ceiling and knocking Michael over onto Shula.

***

"Nikita -- Michael --" Walter called.

"Still here," Nikita said. "Michael has Shula, and we've cancelled Ruman." "Be careful getting out, the floor's still live."

"Got it."

He told Mowen to set the charges under the office buildings, and called in the rest of the operatives.

***

Shula wasn't reluctant at all to trip herself or Michael on their way out of the room. Michael put her in an armlock and strong-armed her to get them out safely. Nikita would have been pleased to let the woman get blown up, but she didn't want to have to tell Operations and Madeleine that she'd failed to bring Shula the Most Holy in alive.

Especially Madeleine.

On the way out the door, Nikita smacked her hand squarely against the center of the painted pattern on the wall, and the floor behind her exploded. She ducked back from the blast, but after that she put a bullet into the center of each pattern and felt satisfied with the explosions.

It was a really fun trip back through the building.

***

Once they had room to maneuver, Michael gave up the struggle and knocked Shula out with a blow on the head. He slung the small woman over his shoulder and headed toward the van. "You coming?" he called back to Nikita.

"Just a minute. I think I saw something." She stepped behind a tree and pushed the preset emergency fire department code on her remote dialup device. She heard it ring through and be answered, and cut off as the phone exploded.

Unanswered emergency calls are always investigated, she knew.

She and Mowen made it back to the van together. The van drove back toward Section on side streets, as the fire truck and emergency vehicles moved toward the burning buildings they'd just left.

***

Shula was conscious by the time they reached Section. She could not have expected to see the faces that met her gaze as she came in under Michael and Nikita's guard. She appeared to recognize Operations as a person of authority and nodded toward him ironically. She received no reaction. Next to him stood a tall boy wrapped in bandages, whom she recognized, who spoke to her in her native language. She tried not to betray how his words stunned her, but her glare at him had no effect. He had gone beyond her reach, and smiled in the face of her anger. They took her away to a white blank room to wait for what would come. She knew it would not be pleasant.

***

"What did you say to her?" Operations asked.

Birkoff gave a brief humorless laugh. "One of her own prayers. 'May you be blessed on the Day of Liberation. When you come before the throne of the powerful one, may you receive what is due you for your actions and accept without regret your verdict."

"Day of Liberation?" Madeleine queried.

"It's supposed to be the time of final judgment. It's observed on the fifth day of the seventh month -- today. That's why the rugs were rolled back and the floor was live." Birkoff felt the memories returning. "It's a test of the Children of the Most High, to walk between the roses."

"Interesting. Tell me more," Madeleine said. "This could be useful."

***

It was rumored the next day that Madeleine had reduced Shula to babbling incoherence with minimal use of drugs or the aid of Housekeeping more quickly than at any time in the history of Section One.

Of course, Section One did not keep records of this variety of personal best.

***

Madeleine smiled as she left the white room and the body that slumped in the chair. She let herself feel the triumph that comes from mastering an enemy, and the glow of revenge for what had been done to her staff. If she had been allowed to have a son, she would have wanted him to be like Birkoff; unfortunately, that had never been possible even before she'd met Operations so long ago.

The body in the chair moaned, no longer caring about anything but seeking a death that would not be allowed her for a long time.

***

The next day, Walter handed Nikita a newspaper. The leading story on the front page described the destruction of a religious group's headquarters, and the rescue of more than a hundred people, most of whom were found to be runaway children in poor health. The local social service agencies and hospitals were swamped with callers looking for family members.

He held out his hand, and she dropped into it the unprogrammed remote dial-up device. He set it back on the shelf as if it had never been gone, turned back to her and smiled warmly.

***

Nikita sat in the background this time. Madeleine held the crystal in the light and talked softly and gently to Birkoff, bringing out of his memory the horrors of his life before Section One and the way Shula had played upon these horrors to seduce him into murder. Her plan to kill Walter, and by extension the rest of them, wasn't the first in which she'd used Birkoff to do her will.

Madeleine had been right. Birkoff had never fired a gun before the time he'd had to kill an enemy coming into the van. He'd never had to face death up close. But he had been just as dangerous as any of the rest of them, and just as deadly.

Nikita came away from the session with a deep respect for Madeleine's skills, and a sense that this time Birkoff had really found the family he'd always been seeking, dysfunctional though it might be.

***

Within two weeks Birkoff was back at his station, overseeing the progress Gail had made on analyzing the material from O.P.M. He was still weaker than he wanted to be, but he was starting to feel at home again with the work. Madeleine had certified him as able to work and as no danger to Section. Nikita had sat in on some of the sessions as an observer, as part of her hypnotist training, and came away impressed by Madeleine's skills.

But he still stayed by himself, hiding away from Nikita and Walter when he was off duty.

Nikita felt reluctant to force him to do anything; he'd had a difficult time and was still recovering emotionally, as well as physically. He came along on missions, typing carefully because of his broken fingers, but as rock-steady as ever in support of the teams. Often Gail came with him, but even she seemed to have trouble getting through to him when he wasn't working.

Walter, back on the job as well, counselled patience when Nikita worried.

"Let him make the first move, sugar."

"What if he doesn't make any move at all?"

"Then he doesn't, and you either wait or you don't. D'you think he wants to just go out with Gail for a while instead of you?"

Nikita shook her head. "I have no idea. I don't think so."

"For what it's worth, I don't think so either." Walter shrugged. "He needs some space, he gets it. I'm not going anywhere." Nikita shot him a reluctant grin. "You and me both, Walter."

***

One day Birkoff wasn't at his post at the computer. Nikita worried when she went out on mission, a brief run to track a courier, and worried even more when she saw his chair empty as she returned. Usually, if he was away, his jacket hung over the back of the chair or he had a snack sitting by his computer waiting for him. This time she saw neither jacket nor food.

On her way to the dining room she passed through a corridor lined with padded white workout rooms. The rhythmic sounds of bodies moving, feet touching floors and padded walls, sounded routine until she came to one room, whose occupants seemed to be moving more slowly. When she looked in through the door she saw Walter and Birkoff working out together, slowly, building up the muscles that had been damaged without further tearing them. Birkoff looked pathetically thin, but the expression on his face was fierce. Walter moved slowly on his injured leg but that was the only slowness about him; his hands moved like striking snakes and he dodged Birkoff's blows and kicks with ease. When Birkoff managed to place a stiff kick to Walter's midsection, one that knocked him back into a wall, his effort was visible -- and Walter moved back into place with a grin and told him to try to do it again.

She kept going down the hall. If they wanted her to know how they were doing, they'd tell her.

***

About a month later, Birkoff flagged Nikita down as she left at the end of the day. "You busy tonight?"

"Not especially. Why?"

"I, um, wanted to know if you'd like to go see 'Rocky Horror' with me and Walter." He looked eager, if a little wary.

"I'd love to, Birkoff." She slung her jacket over her shoulder. "I was starting to think you didn't want me around any more."

"That wasn't it," Birkoff said. "I had to stop feeling helpless. I had to realize it wasn't my fault." He shrugged. "All of it. Walter getting shot, the whole thing." He looked up at her through his glasses. "You helped, but I had to do it for myself."

"That's good." Nikita looked at him over her dark glasses, and for once Birkoff flirted back, winking at her. "So, you want to get some dinner first?" "Yep. Your place." He pulled his jacket from the back of his chair and shrugged into it. Nikita stopped in her tracks an looked surprised. "Gail's been seeing Rick lately. It's not a problem," he reassured her. "It wasn't that serious."

"Is Rick serious?" They moved together toward the door to the outside world.

"Who knows? Gail isn't." Birkoff shrugged again. "Rick's a good guy. He can take care of himself."

"I never doubted that." Nikita caught herself smiling at Birkoff's more mature tone, and smothered the smile so he wouldn't think she was laughing at him. "I'll have to stop at a grocery store; I'm almost out of food. You okay with that?"

"Don't worry about it. We can order out, or Walter can bring some. Yes, I told Walter, and he's coming over too."

"You know, Birkoff, you're turning into a real take-charge kind of guy." She smiled at him. "That can be very attractive."

"I'm not sure the world is ready for that yet."

"Let it be surprised." She nodded to Michael in passing as they left, and he stared after them. "Wouldn't hurt him to be surprised occasionally too, you know."

"I think he just was." Nikita caught a huge grin on Birkoff's face, and smiled in return. "And it's about time."

**Author's Note:**

> This story departs from canon during the second season of LFN on US tv (1998-99).


End file.
